Friday, June 17, 2016

Maioka Redoux: Mr. Asaba and Citizen Volunteers for Maioka Park 舞岡公園

Let me
continue with “The Story of Making Satoyama Park and Citizen Forest: YokohamaMaioka Park and Niiharu Citizen Forest” written by Yoshikazu Asaba浅羽良和（あさばよしかず）「里山公園と『市民の森』づくりの物語」. (Tokyo: Haru-shoboh はる書房, September 2003, ISBN 4-89984-042-X) There is a
reason why the relation between Maioka Citizen Forest and Maioka Park is a kind
of role reversal. Maioka Citizen Forest has wide semi-paved roads for vehicles,
but Maioka Park is with more of trekking roads. Actually, Maioka Park that is
next to the Citizen Forest has the history with forest volunteers similar to
the other Citizen Forests in Yokohama. According to Mr. Asaba, the planning for
Maioka Park began in 1973 with an aim to preserve the scenery and tradition of
Japanese countryside amid an extensive urban development. In the early 1970s,
although housing development was everywhere in Yokohama and the pressure to
bulldoze forests was enormous, the city established a policy to avoid becoming
Tokyo, i.e. a megalopolis sans-green but as an ocean of buildings. Then as now,
the forests of Yokohama are private property of farmers so that to preserve the
greenery the city had to promote local business of farmers. From the beginning,
the idea was unique. Mr. Asaba said when he became in charge of the Maioka Park
in 1986, he tried to find a urban park with a similar concept and couldn’t discover
any. For Maioka of 360ha the city planners demarcated the area with agriculture
zone, nature conservation zone, and urban park zone, which was spelled out in 1975
Maioka and Nobo Area Green Plan 舞岡・野庭グリーンプラン. When
in 1977 Ministry of Construction notified all the municipal governments to
draft Master Plan for Greenery Conservation 緑のマスタープラン, Yokohama responded with Maioka-way where
agriculture policy and urban park construction stood side-by-side to preserve
and create greenery. Maioka, in effect, became the pilot for green urban
planning in Yokohama. The policy implementation started with agriculture
promotion in Nobo town (in 1975) and Maioka town (in 1979). At the same time,
Maioka-Nobo and Jike areas in Yokohama received grants from the Ministry of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery to define their agri-business in a very urban
setting. Jike community decided to make their enterprise as agri-tourism, with
ample visitor parking spaces around rice paddies. Maioka chose to supply
agricultural products, such as veggies, ham and sausages that are on demand of
urbanites in Yokohama. Later these two areas became Our Country Home Forests.
So, Maioka Citizen Forests have lots of veggie fields and orchards whose access
is made of paved roads funded by the national grant.

Well-paved
road leading us toag fields within Maioka Citizen Forest

A work
of professionals

A
vehicle-capable road along an orchardwithin Maioka Citizen Forest

“The
ownership of the land is private in Yokohama” means it takes time to enclose
enough acreage for a park. The south of the current Maioka Park is a sea of
houses developed by Keikyu who was in the 1970s eager to advance their
territory as quickly as possible. The process of securing land was in
competition among the always-poor municipality, large developers including
Keikyu, and any other private sectors. In 1979, Meijigakuin University
announced they would open Yokohama campus in the planned area for Maioka Park.
The urbanites in Maioka were outraged to hear the news. They submitted the city
the petition to fund Maioka-Nobo Area Green Plan before permitting the college
campus. Though in the end Meijigakuin University took 20ha of the area, the
push by the local communities succeeded in budgeting the Maioka-Nobo area plan that
made possible 1981 planning for Maioka Park. A housewife who lived nearby
housing area, Mrs. Tetsuko Koyanagui 小柳徹子, was one of the community leaders for the
Petition. She just wanted to preserve the nature of Maioka for healthy
childhood memory of her kids. Mr. Osamu Jumonji 十文字修who
was born and grew up in a town next to Maioka engaged in volunteering to clean
Kashio River 柏尾川that is
the end of Maioka River running through the planned Park area. In the summer of
1983, Mrs. Koyanagi, her husband, Mr. Katsuhiko Murahashi 村橋克彦 who lived near the Koyanagi family and also
volunteered to clean Kashio/Maioka River, and Mr. Jumonji organized 2 months
exhibition for the nature of Maioka Yato in a community center near JR Totsuka Station. The public reaction was enthusiastic: at the end of the exhibition in
September, 80 like-minded people founded a group, the Organization for Maioka
Water and Green まいおか水と緑の会. Next month, the Organization submitted a request
to the mayor about the planned park in Maioka that should preserve traditional
country-side scenery and biodiversity, and provide hands-on experience of
farming for Yokohama people. Within months, the group started to engage in actual field works such as
vegetation surveys, cleaning up, and reconstruction of abandoned rice paddies within
the planned park area, but no PR shouting of “save the green.” Their activity soon
attracted funding from the Fujifilm Green Fund that was a part of CSR of the
company, and in October 1984 the city allowed the group to work in a larger
area of planned construction site. Until the official opening of the Maioka
Park, the group kept on going with forestry and reconstruction of rice paddies
with new members from nearby kindergartens and elementary schools.

One of
the Organization’s activities thathas become a tradition of the communityis
scarecrow contest every fall.

In
1986 when the city was still struggling to obtain agreement with the landlords,
Mr. Asaba became in charge of securing enough acreage for the Maioka Park. Although
people from the Maioka Organization loved to preserve the land as traditional
Satoyama, the farmers who actually own the land had another idea. For one
thing, Japanese stopped increasing the demand for rice long ago and the farmers
were in effect forced to stop planting rice in their ancestral land by
governmental decrees. (Until 1995, Japanese market for rice was strictly
controlled by the national government.) That’s why Maioka Organization found
the “abandoned” yato paddies and forests. It was certainly not fair. Mr. Asaba run
around for the negotiations with landlords day and night and could not find
time to meet Maioka Organization. When in 1988 he succeeded in piling up the
acreage to 30ha for the park, the Organization became impatient to hear the
detail of the design of the park. By then, they submitted several times the
idea for the design of the Park based on their research and activities, and the
city was already constructing an “artificial urban park” in the south of the
planned area. The Organization visited the city office to demand explanation of
the design. It became the first meeting for Mr. Asaba to meet the forest
volunteers in Yokohama. They pointed out fancy names in the plan, such as
“Valley of Fireflies” for a place without actual fireflies, were nonsense since
they were not based on the real ecology of Maioka. According to Mr. Asaba, the
city realized they were too busy for the negotiation with landlords, and left
the detail of the park design to consultants lacking town hall meetings or scientific
field surveys. The partnership between volunteers and Mr. Asaba began. In any
case, the construction of urban park by bulldozing coppice continued for some
time, which in the end created the scenery of Zelkova Plazaけやき広場with
the municipal administration office for the Park, and Maple Rest Areaもみじ休憩所 where
wide paved roads go through artificially created lawn field with neat hedges of
azaleas and boxes.

Maple
Rest Area

Zelkova
Plaza

The
Organization defended their activity fields in the yato valley and the
remaining coppice next to Maple Rest Area. Mr. Asaba was moved by their passion
and raised his hand in 1992 to be in charge of yato area construction. He
discussed with the Organization countless times about the design of the park
around yato. The Organization submitted a detailed plan not only for
architectural park design but also for yearly event proposals, facilities for
community activities, and an organizational chart for park management. Using
the plan Mr. Asaba boldly re-designed the original plan of the city in order to
reflect the Organization’s request for nature conservation in traditional
scenery. The city and the Organization decided to adopt the detailed zoning in
Maioka Park. The area where the Organization was planting rice was designated
for educational area to learn traditional agriculture. The places such as
Zelkova Plaza and Maple Rest Area are for standard urban park. The remaining
coppices are for nature conservation with limited access. I guess this approach
to Maioka Park became the masterplan for Conservation and Management Plan of each Citizen Forest.

Urban
park area

The
nature conservation area of the coppicenext to Maple Rest Area.The place was
called Ninja Forest.

Educational
area to learn traditional nature husbandry

To my
surprise, the traditional style old farm house, Koyato-no-sato小谷戸の里, and surrounded ponds and
rice paddies are artificially created prototype of “Japanese traditional
country house.” Before the construction, this place was a swamp and a small
stream. The city reclaimed the large portion of the bog, and moved an old farm
house from Higashi Totsuka to make the place a base for the Organization. So,
the house with a small museum was not there before 1992. The roads running
around Koyato-no-sato and educational rice paddies were also intentionally
designed. Mr. Asaba wrote in the book that the city originally wanted to pave all
the routes in the Park with fluorescent street lights. Mr. Asaba negotiated
with his bosses to keep the roads unpaved with good-ol wooden power poles
equipped with ancient-looking naked light bulbs, as we can see in My Neighbor Totoro. Of course the offices in charge of safety in parks were against the
idea. Mr. Asaba let energize the light bulbs with underground cable, and made
the yato area closed during nights. The electric cables in the Maioka Park are
decoration without real electricity running.

The
house was rescuedwhen Higashi Totsuka area was developed for housing.

These
ponds, hedges of tea tress and charcoal hutsare re-creation at the end of the
20th century.

It’s
really a designed road foridyllic country life in Yokohama.

One of
the gates to yato area opening only with day light.

2
weeks before the opening of the Maioka Park in June 1992, the volunteers and
the city dissolved the Organization into a new organization called the
Organization to Nurture Maioka Park 舞岡公園をはぐくむ会. The original idea was to
mobilize further citizen volunteers for the management of the park with the
city maintaining the upper hand. At the beginning coordination between the city
and the new Organization did not go smoothly, but volunteers persevered in challenges
and kept organizing fieldworks such as rice cultivation, forestry and
educational activities for Satoyama knowledge. In 2000 the city transferred the
entire control to the volunteers whose organization is now called
Yato-Human-Future やとひと未来. Mr. Asaba wrote Maioka Park turned out to be the
first Satoyama park in Japan where the partnership between local communities
and the government is essential for development of a urban park, and preserves
original scenery of pre-industrial life where the urbanites can learn and
experience the tradition directly. I think Maioka is an evidence for the
evolution of urban planning in Yokohama. The place contains traditional scenery
of agricultural life in Japan, productive modern agriculture for veggies and
processed meat, and neatly manicured urban parks next to orderly aligned
detached modern houses. Maioka Forest keeps the memories of post-war Japanese development.

After the full-opening of Maioka Park in
1996, Mr. Asaba moved to Green Policy Division where he coordinated Citizen Forest
volunteers in Yokohama. His final job as a city architect was an opening of
Niiharu Forest. Next week, I’ll write what I have found in his book for Niiharu.

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About Me

My
family moved to Yokohama from Tokyo before I became 3 years old. Since then,
Yokohama is my home town. (Though, I cannot be Hamakko since I was born in Tokyo ... Hey, this is Japan!) I have watched my playground is changing always. I
hope you find Yokohama interesting place. With love, Naomi